My puppy barks at me

[Rosella T]

Hi everyone,

I've had my sweet little Omar for 3 weeks now and he is wonderful in so many ways. He is 12 weeks old and has definitely burst out of his shell. He's pretty housetrained and sleeps through the night quietly in his crate. My biggest problem with him is that he barks at me in the evening. He gets bored very easily (of course because he's a puppy) and when he does he looks right at me and barks. Sometimes it's to be let out which is fine but other times I can't figure out what he wants and he continues to bark at me in approximately 5 second intervals - his bark is loud and high pitched - and he doesn't stop. I have tried everything. I calmly but firmly say quiet and try to put my hand gently around his mouth when I say it. This used to work on my old dog. That said my old dog never barked at me like this. It literally drives me bananas and I just don't know how to make him stop. I've almost taught him to speak on command but he's not 100% with it. I have taught him a lot of basic commands but I can't seem to teach him to be quiet on command. Any suggestions would be appreciated as I live in an apartment and my neighbours have a baby so I'd love to get this under control now before it becomes unmanageable.

I've attached a picture of the little beast just because he's so damn cute!

[Rosella T]

Thank you so much, Karen. Traz is gorgeous! This is great advice. Obviously consistency is key. I have to remember that Omar is just a baby and over the next year or two he will grow up to be a more mature obedient dog like Traz. :)

[Julie and Max]

What a cute puppy! I dislike barking, and my husband cannot stand it. I found that eventually the ignoring worked but it took awhile for him to get it. 

[Rosella T]

Thanks, Julie! This morning Omar barked at me while I was filling his kong which he is obsessed with. So I stopped what I was doing and turned my back on him. He stopped barking very quickly and once he was quiet I resumed and then made him sit for his kong. I'm relieved to hear it worked for you!

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

My trainer loved that my dog was vocal and barked.  She saw that as a good thing. Of course that was also in relation to his confident body language.

I have been successful in teaching my chatterbox not to bark at times also.  Not 100%.  but he does very well 

[Rosella T]

It's funny my vet just told me that Omar had confident body language. Maybe it goes hand in hand with chatter boxes?

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

OMD, Omar is cute, Rosella!  These guys are so smart :)  FInn will sit like Omar and bark once when he needs to go out…yet he never learned to use his potty bells!!  If I forget his after dinner treat, he'll sit by the pantry door and bark once.  But if I ignore him, he gives up.  90% of the time, he's pretty quiet unless he feels he has to make a point! Good luck!

[Rosella T]

Omar is an angel all throughout the day and then around 7pm he starts to morph into a little demon! The demon phase comes in and out until he crashes for the night so I have come to expect it. Last night however, he was on overdrive until 11pm when I put him in his crate for bed time. This morning he is the most mellow dog you could imagine so at least I know he wore himself out with yesterday's antics. 

P.S. I love that you named your dog Finnegan! He is really cute btw.

[Barb & Aria]

hello Rosella, Aria is the same way she will sleep all day with a breaks for bathroom but when comes evening she turns into crazy pup, she runs like somebody put the fire under her tail. cant wait when we can start regular walks maybe then we can burn some energy off of them... 

[Rosella T]

I have started regular walks with Omar and it is much better now. He is still the most energetic at night but I bring him for a long walk before dinner and it has improved the situation a lot. I also bring him for a walk after dinner in the evening. He is much more manageable. Also I taught him to speak on command and to be quiet on command so he's much better about barking too.

[Barb & Aria]

Omar is so cute..!!!  I love him

[Jen & Hudson]

When Hudson was 10 weeks, I realized I had a confident puppy when he started talking back a lot when I gave him commands. He would perform the commands just fine, but would bark at me like a teenager talking back to a parent while he was reluctantly obeying.

I soon realized that my body language was giving off a weak vibe and he was testing his limits with me. So I started standing tall and leaning forward over him when giving commands with a deeper, more confident tone. Worked like a charm. The back-talking immediately started to decrease until one day I noticed he didn't do it anymore.

Now he knows his place and he knows who's in charge and he only uses his voice to alert or during play. No more back talking or trying to order me around.

[Rosella T]

I think I am dealing with the same personality type that you describe in Hudson. Thank you so much for describing the way you used your body language to let Hudson know that you are in charge. I am going to make that tweak to how I have been interacting with Omar. I appreciate the great advice!